Thirty Days hath September - Day Nine - Boats at Low Tide

Day Nine saw some of my fabulous regulars come to the studio for a workshop today and I was pushed right out of my comfort zone! Not only do I not paint boats, having failed abysmally in previous attempts but I shy away from the colour orange at every opportunity.
So, what was I think saying that I would not only do this but have ten people watching me and painting their own version at the same time? Ah well, here is a brief outline of what we did...

After drawing out our piece, concentrating on a boat in the foreground and a simple horizon, we flooded the paper with Pyrrol Orange, Sodalite and Prussian Blue with a bit of rag rolling for good measure.

Using a waterproof sketching pen, we added some structure to the boat to bring it forward of the background.

To make the colour pop, We repeated step one again but this time included Dr. P.H. Martin's Bombay Ink in to the mix too.

Now working on the boats in the distance and foreground, we continued to add shadows, depth and detail to the composition.

To complete the piece, the colours were strengthened, more pen was added and a few white biro and gouache highlights were popped in for good measure.

A huge part of the Thirty Days challenge is not only to try things that I haven't done before (or shy away from) but also learning to walk away from the day's project in order to move on to the next. Are there things I would change about this piece? Of course there are, but it's a boat, it's got orange in it, even though my brush SCREAMED to be allowed near the purple and I'm pleased that I have pushed myself. Let's hope that everyone who came today is pleased with their piece, I hope they are because I thought they were amazing!
Tomorrow: Artistic shenanigans with my chicken!